Rehabilitation journey of Luke is remembered

An ambassador for the Defence and National Rehabilitation Centre (DNRC) at Stanford Hall, Luke Wigman, who served in Afghanistan, reflects on his personal story of rehabilitation and what the DNRC will do for others.

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ON THE eve of Remembrance Sunday, ambassador for the Defence and National Rehabilitation Centre (DNRC) at Stanford Hall, Luke Wigman, who served in Afghanistan, reflects on his personal story of rehabilitation and what the DNRC will do for others.

He told the Echo: “I joined the RAF in 2008 and completed my first tour to Afghanistan in 2009, working in and around Kandahar.

“On my second tour two years later, I was leading a patrol in a village near Sangin when I stepped on a bomb and it messed up my day.

“I can look back on that now with a sense of perspective. At the time, I was rushed to Camp Bastion, patched up and then airlifted back to the QE2 Hospital in Birmingham where I spent around eight weeks not really knowing where I was or what I was doing there.

“When I transferred to Headley Court, the current defence medical centre in Surrey, that’s when the healing process really started and I learned the power of clinical rehabilitation.

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“Seven operations on my leg and several years on, I’m looking to the future not stuck in the past. Winning gold medals at the Invictus Games in Orlando this May certainly helped put a spring back in my step.

“As we approach Remembrance Sunday, the nation quite rightly reflects on the commitment and sacrifice that our Armed Forces make.

“As an ambassador for the Defence and National Rehabilitation Centre (DNRC) being built at Stanford Hall, I’m hugely proud to see a potentially world-leading facility like this taking shape here on our doorstep.

“When it opens in 2018, it will be a genuine centre for clinical excellence and will do amazing things for people like me, whether they are injured in conflict or training.

“I visited the building site last month and was inspired to see the new buildings clearly emerging and to get a real sense for how impressive and capable the DNRC will be.

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“And beyond its role as the next-generation Headley Court serving the Armed Forces, the bigger prize is for the ‘national’ elements to come forward. This will ensure, in an unprecedented way, that defence medicine and NHS medicine can work together, sharing skills and research and, ultimately, driving up expertise, results and standards of care.

“This Remembrance Day I’ll stop to think back and honour my friends and colleagues who paid a price for serving the nation.

“But I’ll also look forward in the knowledge that, with the DNRC taking shape, we will have the very best care and medical capability for those who need it.”